Users of wireless communications devices, such as mobile telephones, may send and receive a variety of different types of communications. When the user is communicating with servers outside the wireless network, the communications transmitted and received by wireless communication devices may need to be translated from one protocol to another. If the protocol translation takes place outside the control of either the sender or receiver, there may be a security problem, especially when firewalls are involved.
One type of communication that may be transmitted and received by wireless mobile communication devices is email. In a typical architecture, the email server may be an Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP) server coupled with the Internet. The email server may be connected via a connecter to a mobile email enabling server. The mobile email enabling server may transmit and receive emails from wireless communications devices using a mobile email protocol. Thus, the mobile email enabling server may be coupled with both the Internet and a wireless network. The mobile email enabling server may also use other protocols to communicate with mobile enablers that support functions such as outband notification, device provisioning, or other functions.
In order to satisfy security requirements, firewalls may exist between the connectors and the mobile email enabling server. Alternatively or additionally, firewalls may also exist between the wireless communication devices and the mobile email enabling server and/or the mobile enablers and mobile email enabling server. If the mobile email enabling server is not in either the wireless network operator's domain or the email service provider's domain, email messages are exposed outside the control of both parties during conversion between protocols and end-to-end security requirements are not satisfied.